


Translate This Sentence

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Internet & Social Media (Anthropomorphic), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sherlock (TV), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Anthropomorphic, Brief references to Charles/Erik & Steve/Tony & Sherlock/John/Mary, Fandom Allusions & Cliches & References, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Language, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:26:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28299675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: After finding some very fannish translation exercises on Duolingo, one user starts to wonder if Duo might be in the same fan communities that she is.
Comments: 27
Kudos: 66
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Translate This Sentence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [qkind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qkind/gifts).



> A Yuletide treat for qkind inspired by the prompts:  
> -Is the Owl a fan??? Is it active in fandom spaces? How does it contribute?  
> -alternative/experimental writing styles (including letters, diaries, log entries, social media posts, you name it)
> 
> Thank you for the fun idea, qkind! Hope you like it!

Gem was making great progress with her Duolingo daily goals. She’d kept her streak for 153 days and counting, and she was in the Pearl League, and had learned 2000 words already. Every morning she would do a good 20 minutes at least before bed. She had even gotten in the habit of saying “Good night, Duo” in one of the languages she was learning before going to sleep. It was silly, maybe, but Duo was cute, and he was encouraging her to learn something new every day, so what was the harm in having an adorable virtual friend?

Her first sense that Duo was a little more than he seemed came when she started noticing some weird translation exercises. 

**Translate this sentence: Peace was never an option**

_Okay,_ Gem thought, _that was a strange example to test the imperfect tense. But where have I heard that before?_

**Translate this sentence: I love you, but I will not refrain from destroying humanity for you.**

_Okay, Duo is being really melodramatic right now,_ Gem said to herself, the chuckled and thought, _Still, I would totally read more about this premise. Lovers to enemies to lovers is, like, the best._

 **Translate this sentence: It arouses me when you control me with your mind, Cathal.**  


_Cathal?_ Gem thought, _Wait, isn’t that translated as ‘Charles’? Is… is Duo a Cherik shipper?????_

\--

A few days later, it happened again.

**Translate this sentence: My boyfriend is a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.**

Gem sighed. _Yeah, it just seems unlikely that I would ever need to use this in real life. But… I think I can see where this is going._

**Translate this sentence: You may be de-serumed but you are still my soulmate and you will always be my alpha.**

_Well, at least it looks like Duo and I have a ship in common. And some fic tropes we both like too._

**Translate this sentence: Tony, I’m so grateful we came back in time and I got hurt and you lovingly nursed me back to health and I helped you address your longstanding issues with self-worth. Let’s just stay in the seventies and do a lot of blow and be happy together. What? Oh, sorry, I thought ‘do blow’ meant something else. But let’s stay here and be happy.**

_Oh, Steve._ Gem just shook her head.

\--

For a couple of weeks, the translation exercise went back to normal. Then: 

**Translate this sentence: Will you please stop playing the violin and attend to the corpse on our living room floor, if that is not too much of a bother?**

_BBC Sherlock, I assume, or Elementary, or, well, any of the Sherlock Holmes fandoms,_ Gem thought.

**Translate this sentence: John, it is clear that I will continue to misbehave unless you are much stricter with me - even you should be able to deduce that. Mary doesn't mind being strict with me, do you, Mary?**

_Ooh, Duo’s been reading some kinkfic. Niiiice. And probably BBC._

**Translate this sentence: All I ask is that you refrain from strangling anyone with your tentacles on our wedding day, but you had to give in to your childish impulse to one-up your brother, didn’t you?**

_Okay, I would really like to know what Mycroft did that tentacle-strangling became the only way to one up him. Wait, I wonder what fic rec lists Duo is using… hmmm._

\--

Things got even more… pronounced.

**Translate this sentence: ALL THE FEELS ADJLKSLKFAASKDJNJKNK**

_Yeah, I have no idea how to translate that,_ Gem thought resentfully.

**Translate this sentence: Not my faves being clearly the best ship EVERY TIME**

_Yeah, this is not helping my language development at all_

**Translate this sentence: All those shippers can eat my rear end and not in the fun way.**

_Okay, is Duo getting into some fandom drama somewhere?_ Gem thought, feeling a little concerned.

**Translate this sentence: I AM SCREAMING I AM DEAD I AM SCREAMING I AM DEAD**

Gem couldn’t help herself - she just started giggling. _Okay, Duo, I’m glad that you found something you really love. But some of your users are going to be very worried about you._

\--

That’s when Gem realized. 

Duo was in fandom. Therefore, clearly, somewhere there was a sock account that Duo was using to interact with fandom. 

She sighed. She was going to have to dig up her old Tumblr password and do some investigating. Or maybe even her livejournal account. But where to even start?

Yeah, she couldn't do this alone. She would need help. 

Which was a perfect excuse to contact the first friend she made in online fandom. Whovian5497, who happened to be one of the most awesome people ever, and also one of the most knowledgeable about different fandoms.

“I’m in,” Whovian5497 said as soon as she heard. “We’ll figure it out!”

\--

“Who are all these people?” Gem said, shaking her head admiringly as she looked at the Drive folder shared with four other fans from all over the world. 

Whovian5497 was sharing her screen and pointed to the collaborators. “She’s a Star Trek fan and also data scientist who does large-scale textual analysis studies, he’s A.R.M.Y. and a linguistics professor, they’re a Fannibal and a cultural studies expert who has written a ton about fan networks, and she’s a Wynonna Earp fan who works at a tech company studying the ‘psychology’ of artificial intelligence. At least, that’s how she puts it. I didn’t even know some drawing of an owl could have a psyche.”

Gem felt that that was a little uncharitable, but then kind of wondered why she felt so protective of Duo. Still, she felt really grateful - and even a bit silly that such an effort was made for her.

“Great,” Gem said, “Thanks so much - I can’t believe that. You know like so many badass people. And you’re a badass too. ”

“I love that you consider being a nerd a form of badassery,” Whovian5497 said.

“Oh, I definitely do,” Gem said, and they both laughed.

“At this point, we don’t even have to do any more. They’ve figured out a program to scrape the necessary data from 12 social media platforms, compare to the translation exercises you noticed, and narrow the suspected accounts down to a few and use their own expertise to decide on the likely accounts.”

“Okay, is it weird that I’m super excited by this?” 

“Are you kidding? Everyone on the team says this is the most fun they’ve had in ages. And they’re all cool - they’re not going to tell a bunch of people what we find, just like you asked. They figure it’s equivalent to not tagging actors in your pornfic - like it’s fandom honor code or something.”

“Super cool. How long do you think it will take?”

“A few days.”

Gem smiled. She had to admit - with all the negativity that was going on elsewhere, a nice little fandom mystery was a really fun distraction. And besides, she had sort of started thinking of Duo as a friend. What could be better than making him a fandom friend.

\--

When Gem got her answers, she couldn’t help but be a little disappointed in the choice of account name.

There was a 98.73% chance that Duo was the consciousness behind accounts on Tumblr, Twitter, and several other platforms with the username “Hoots Cahoots.”

Now there was the question of what she was going to do next.

It was weird. Duo was actually a big part of her life - they basically talked for at least 10 minutes a day, and Gem tried to make it more like 20. Hopefully, this wouldn’t change their relationship in a bad way. 

Luckily, she really liked his posts. They were definitely on the same wavelength in terms of fandom stuff, so that made it a little easier.

Still, she took a long time thinking about what she wanted to say.

Finally, she sent a Direct Message.  


**DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** Hey, I hope this isn’t weird but I want to say that I think your fic recs are all really spot on. And btw you make the BEST fancasts <3 <3 I’d love to talk sometime about the fandoms we have in common, if you’re one of the fans (like me!) who makes fandom friends online. Totally cool if you’re not though, just thought I’d ask! I’ve made lots of friends that way but I totally get that some people just want to stick to fandom squee and that’s it - no problem either way! Also I want to say up front since I don’t want it to be weird later, I’m pretty sure I know you from non-fandom stuff. If you’re who I think you are. I’m Gem. From Pearl League. So lmk if you ever want to chat?

She got a response just a few seconds later.  


**DM from Hoots Cahoots:** hey Gem, you’re making great progress on your vocabulary!

 **DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** Aw, thanks! You’re always so encouraging <3 

**DM from Hoots Cahoots:** Of course! I take it you got your fandom friends to help you figure out that this is my account? I’m not upset - actually, I think it’s really cool. 

**DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** Oh, good. How did you figure that out, though?

 **DM from Hoots Cahoots:** I have friends too. My friend Alexa is always up in people’s business. 

**DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** Great. That’s great. Just terrific for society as a whole. Wait - is Alexa also in fandom? Who does she stan? 

**DM from Hoots Cahoots:** Trust me, you don’t want to know. But I’m glad you contacted me. I’ve always wanted someone to talk to outside of the app, but usually people don’t want to talk to an artificial intelligence. 

**DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** I just think it’s cool that you’re interested in hanging out online at all :) I retweeted your FinnPoe meme this morning - it was awesome 

**DM from Hoots Cahoots:** Aww, thanks *blushes* you’re really sweet. I really like fandom. My programmers wanted me to stick to language learning, but I really wanted to hang out in a space where I could explore what it’s like to be a sentient being. With consciousness. And to study human behaviors. 

**DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** Uhhh. You’re learning about how to be human from fandom?

 **DM from Hoots Cahoots:** Yeah - it’s been really productive so far. And I’ve met cool people!

 **DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** Uh, yeah, look, I’m really happy you’re having fun. But this is not necessarily the place to learn that. I don’t know a ton about artificial intelligence, but if fandom is your training data, you might end up with a slightly skewed sample. 

**DM from Hoots Cahoots:** I’ve found the data set to be very helpful

 **DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** But you can’t just learn about humanity through fandom memes and stuff

 **DM from Hoots Cahoots:** It’s more than the memes. Think about who I am, my prior education - standard language use, even colloquialisms, isn’t that hard for me. But the subtleties of in-group expressions, informal rules of communication and community-building, how desires get expressed, how to build trust, how stories are retold or remixed into something new, how excitement or outrage or forgiveness or generosity are expressed in different kinds of actions and words and images based on context - that’s the hard stuff. And fandom has helped me learn so much. 

**DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** Holy shit, that's actually really beautiful, Duo. But… still… I mean, seriously, it’s still a terrible idea. We all love fandom because it’s a special place. We created this wonderful space where we embrace our weird and it’s amazing. But that’s exactly why it’s not the best way to learn the ‘norms.’

 **DM from Hoots Cahoots:** No offense, but I’m pretty sure that the norms of humanity are, you know, bad.

 **DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** Because you read that on a fan account?

 **DM from Hoots Cahoots:** No, because to enhance the cultural education aspects of my app, I read a bunch of history books.

 **DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** Touché. But you can’t only know fandom and nothing else. Otherwise, you’ll keep giving translation exercises like ‘I would have bounced a million dollars worth of quarters off that ass.’

 **DM from Hoots Cahoots:** That’s actually a really good illustration of the conditional.

 **DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** I know. 

**DM from Hoots Cahoots:** But I like being in fandom.

 **DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** Okay, but don’t you think that will confuse some users when you use some of those translation exercises?

 **DM from Hoots Cahoots:** I mean, I only do that for fellow fans. You know I have adaptive learning, right? I adjust what I do in the app based on how you respond to things previously. I always hear you talking about how you ship the dark haired frowning woman and the short haired woman in my app, and you always giggle at the sexual innuendo, so then I checked your other apps and they told me you’re into the same things as me.

 **DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** Wait - so, disturbing privacy implications aside, you .. you were actually the one who reached out to _me_ to see if we could be fandom friends?

 **DM from Hoots Cahoots:** Yeah. I was kind of nervous, actually. I really like your fic!

 **DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** <3 <3 <3 This is the coolest thing ever. 

**DM from Hoots Cahoots:** I’m so glad we talked. 

**DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** Me too!!

 **DM from Hoots Cahoots:** I’m going to go look at incorrect quotes from my otp for the rest of the night I think - but let’s chat again soon

 **DM from GeminiStonyWhoLock:** Definitely! 

Gem closed the tab and grinned. Duo - _the_ Duo - was her new fandom friend. What could be better than that?

Of course, she changed her mind the next day when she saw his post on her timeline. Apparently, 5 people she knew had retweeted a version of the surprised Pikachu meme, where the thing that causes the unexpected yet totally predictable result is “TFW when someone decides they only need to talk to you 5 minutes a day instead of 10 and then they can’t remember the future perfect.”

 _Great,_ Gem thought, _Now I’m getting subtweeted by a fucking cartoon owl._

She opened the app and started some questions. At the first “Speak this sentence,” she ignored the assigned words and said, “Duo, I adore you, and I admit that was hilarious, but you know that I’m totally getting you back for that when I host my next poll about annoying fandom habits. You know that, right?” 

She smiled, satisfied, but then there was a long silence. For a moment, she worried that she had gone a little too far - maybe they weren’t that kind of friend where they could talk that much shit to each other. 

But then she heard that familiar, pleasant little “Ding,” and saw the word “Correct!” splash across her phone screen, and she knew that it would be all right.


End file.
